Sports of The Times; Lithuanian Makes Point, But Not 54

THE lead got to be 20, and then it was 25, and then it was 30, but the Lithuanian regulars played on, and on, and on, against their good friends from what used to be called the Soviet Union.

What with another week of the Olympic basketball qualifying tournament coming up in Zaragoza, it seemed like a very good idea to rest all the regulars. But Arvidas Sabonis, the giant with the repaired Achilles' tendon, lumbered up and down the court.

The players on the bench performed the wave in unison with the Spanish crowd. Waving their arms would be their only exercise all evening.

Why in the world would Carastas Uladas, the Lithuanian coach, who used to coach the Soviet Union, leave his regulars in so long? There were reasons. There were 54 reasons.

They fell short. The four Lithuanian stalwarts from the 1988 Soviet Union gold-medal team demolished something called the Commonwealth of Independent States by a score of 116-79 last night. The shouts from the closed locker room were in Lithuanian, but one got the point the players were happy.

"We thought it would be a close game," said Arturas Karnishovas, the sixth man from Seton Hall with the bizarre Lithuanian-New Jersey accent, who scored 18 points. "We needed more than one ball out there."

Even after falling behind, 8-0, the Lithuanians purposefully took apart a C.I.S. team that included Aleksandr Volkov of the Atlanta Hawks. The former teammates helped each other up after inevitable collisions. They are all in this together. The Lithuanians were running up the score against "them" -- the old system.

"I recognize that I left my players in a long time," Uladas said, "but I was concerned about the point differential for the next round. My main purpose is to qualify for the Olympics."

Both teams will be struggling to be among the four teams moving on from Zaragoza to Barcelona. There are reputations and fortunes to be made there.

Both these teams are into survival. Before the game the Lithuanians strolled around in gaudy tie-dyed warmup suits, courtesy of the California company that supplies outfits to that famous Lithuanian rock band, the Grateful Dead.

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The Lithuanians are making up for the 60's and the 70's and the 80's, which they more or less missed. You could say they were otherwise occupied.

They could have warmed up to the strains of "Touch of Gray," by the Dead, the song with the mantra, "I will survive." The C.I.S. players are also trying to cut their own deals in a suddenly open world.

"My friends don't know what will happen tomorrow," said Karnishovas, who used to play for the Soviet juniors. "My friends live for today. They are confused. I'm sure it's tough. The clubs can't pay money like Europe does."

Most of the Lithuanians have left for leagues in Germany or Spain, or even the United States. Last year, Sarunas Marciulionis of the Golden State Warriors met the Grateful Dead at one of their concerts. One of the band's managers handed Marciulionis a check for $5,000 to help sponsor the national team. The tie-dyed warm ups arrived later.

The athletes from the Soviet bloc had to bluff their way toward money and freedom as the old regime crumbled. Donn Nelson, the young assistant coach of Golden State, recalls pursuing Marciulionis in 1987 and running into a power play by Soviet athletes.

"Gary Kasparov, the chess champion, arranged a surprise press conference for Fetisov, the hockey player, and Chesnokov, the tennis player, and a few other athletes.

"Before the conference, Kasparov said, 'Guys, you are either going to be well off -- or you are going to be in Siberia.' It's funny now, but it wasn't so funny then. He told the Soviet press that he was taking Gorbachev at his word and that athletes should have the freedom to make money. The press was free to print this, and the athletes began keeping their money."

This freedom enabled Sabonis and Valery Tikhonenko, teammates from the 1988 gold-medal team, to be teammates again for one year on a club team in Spain, which is one reason the two amigos were not trying to behead each other last night.

The remaining C.I.S. players don't quite know who they represent anymore, but the Lithuanians remember their history. The number 54 seems to ring a bell.

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A version of this article appears in print on June 27, 1992, on Page 1001031 of the National edition with the headline: Sports of The Times; Lithuanian Makes Point, But Not 54. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe